


Tranquility

by LLReid



Category: Sin With Me (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Chronic Pain, F/F, Fluff, dyslexic writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 18:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21212774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Yvette takes her girlfriend on a date.





	Tranquility

It may as well have been a scientific fact that Yvette wasn’t good at relationships, like, at all. She never had been and probably never would be anywhere near as suave as she would have liked to be...she couldn’t even touch another person without her gloves on. She wasn’t the soft and effortlessly romantic type that most women lusted after, she wasn’t always all that great at using her words, and most people exhausted her after any significant amount of time together. Perhaps that was why she was experiencing love for the first time and felt more like a teenager than a grown woman who worked surrounded by demons for a living.

It felt as if the assassin had lived away from the world for so much of her life, that she sometimes wondered who she was, or if she truly belonged anywhere. Yet, somehow, the waif of a woman on her arm seemed to chase all of those thoughts away without even realising what she was doing. It was painfully obvious to everyone who met her that Cleo was special in more ways than one, yet Cleo seemed to be genuinely oblivious to every single one of the special things that made her so extraordinary.

Being with her was like having spend her whole life falling toward the earth, until the moment Cleo had caught her. She realised that somehow she had managed to catch her at the same time. And together, instead of falling, they were each able to fly.

The younger woman knew absolutely nothing of all the sleepless nights and exhausting days Yvette had spent searching for the perfect date night to treat her to on her twenty-fourth birthday — half of that time had been spent fending off Vinca’s idea for a gaudy surprise party, which had been so exhausting that she’d driven her to the drink on more than one occasion. Finances weren’t a burden and they were in one of the most exciting cities on the planet, and she knew that her girlfriend never expected anything from anyone, so there should have been plenty of ideas...yet nothing had seemed good enough. There was no perfect solution, only a choice between several bad solutions, but renting out an entire aquarium had seemed like the most creative.

The world beyond the aquarium had vanished from her awareness the second she’d removed the blindfold from around Cleo’s face, her smile had been so beautiful that it had actually knocked her senseless for a good few minutes. There was only this place, this patch of heaven, peaceful and quiet and blazing with unearthly colour as exotic creatures floated around them on the other side of thick plexiglass. The mixed scents of lavender perfume and warm caramel skin were all around her.

In all of her years of living in Vegas she had never seen a place so decorated so extravagantly. It was like a glittering underwater kingdom, reminding her of the tales of Atlantis that had enchanted her as a child. Exotic sea creatures swam all around them through the crystal blue water. The wall on the far side of the humongous tanks were studded with seashells that gave the impression of a castle beneath the sea.

“Sharks have always been my favourite animal,” Cleo breathed. She pressed close to Yvette’s side with the barriers of their clothing between them as a few massive sharks swam over their heads in the glass tunnel they were standing in, her dark eyes glistening with the same wonder that had been there the first time she’d watched her perform.

When the pace of their feet matched perfectly, she felt a deep inner pang of satisfaction. Yvette could have gone on walking like that forever, side by side with Cleo. There had been few times in her life she had ever inhabited a moment so fully, with no loneliness lurking at the edges.

“Why?”

“When I was a kid I was home sick from school one day and ended up watching some daytime documentary and I found out that sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one really knows why. Some say it's the metal in the aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity.” She smiled, wistfully. “Ten year old me felt like she related to that on a soul level.”

“I think that’s why people like fish in aquariums; they remind us of ourselves, well fed but incapable of moving beyond the glass walls.”

Cleo hummed in agreement. Her face was unexpectedly young, her complexion clean-scrubbed and as smooth as a tablet of soap. All cheekbones and warm brown eyes, with a sharp little rampart of a chin. But amidst the elegant angles and edges of her features, there was a valentine of a mouth, tender and vulnerable, the upper lip nearly as full as the lower. A mouth with such pretty curves that it did something to Yvette’s knees every time she saw it — she’d never been so tempted to kiss another person before. 

Everything about Cleo Yang was... delicious. The dissecting gaze, the voice as crisp as the icing on a lemon cake. The compassion that drove her to be kind to the undeserving as well as the deserving, that hadn’t allowed her for a moment to believe that her predicament was a hinderance to their relationship. The purposeful walk, the relentless energy, the self-satisfaction of a woman who neither concealed nor apologised for her own intelligence. She was sunlight and steel, spun into a substance she'd never encountered before.

The mere thought of her left Yvette like a stray coal on a fire.

“When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium,” she reminisced. “My dad set it up for me with rainbow coloured gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a little china mermaid statue. Eventually fish were pressed on me and they seemed an intrusion, I snuck out one day and gave them to the boy who lived next door.” When her eyes fluttered closed she could still see her tiny little aquarium; all it had wanted was the sound of the pump, the gently waving plants, the mysterious pebbles and the silent mermaid smiling in the green-gold light. She spent most of her entire childhood reading about the lives other people were having, as she was kept physically isolated because of her ailment. No one knew that her world had been...very small. Her family hadn’t believed she would thrive if she weren't kept secluded and protected. Like a flower in a glasshouse. It hadn’t help matters that she had been shy and wore glasses. She was never one to stand out in the crowd. She liked to stay in corners. And she had been happiest when she was alone reading. “I used to sit and look at them for hours on end whilst reading my dad’s biology textbooks. The mermaid was a gift I bought myself on Ebay with my allowance money.”

“I was suspended from kindergarten for three days for daring my cousin to eat the fish flakes we fed our class pets.”

“You had class pets?”

“We had two beta fish.”

“What were their names? Psycho and Killer?"

Cleo shook her head. "Unfortunately I didn’t get to name them. They were called Oreo and Twinkie."

Her mouth dropped open. "You're kidding."

A grin flitted across her lips. "Afraid not. If naming them after dessert snacks had been Miss Coleman’s attempt to make them seem cute, it didn’t work.”

She huffed. “Why were you the one who was suspended if your cousin was the one foolish enough to have eaten the fish flakes, though?”

“I might have punched him in the face for tattling.”

“You punched him in the face?,” she smirked.

“He made me look like an idiot. I’ve never had any objection to appearing depraved or villainous. But I draw the line at looking like a prize idiot...so I punched him in the face and knocked out one of his teeth.” Cleo rolled her eyes, “the story is told at every family gathering and it’s something that I’ll, quite literally, never live down.”

At that she actually giggled aloud, bringing a gloved hand to cover her mouth as she did so. No one had ever enraptured her by being so unbelievably and gloriously weird, yet Cleo did it with ease. She was like thunderstorms and rainbows wrapped together in a convenient pocket-sized parcel and everyday Yvette felt herself falling hard and fast. And there didn't seem to be a thing she could do about it. 

“You sweet…beautiful…lunatic. You have to admire such arrogance, it must have taken years to cultivate,” she teased.

“What can I say? It’s a gift.”

As they talked, Yvette always had the sense of uncovering something precious and long-buried, fully formed. All of their conversations were a process of removing layers, some of them easily dusted away. Other layers, requiring chisels or axes, were slowly obliterated. They revealed as much as they dared about what had happened during the years that had taken place before their meeting. For so long there had always been something in her that had remained stubbornly locked away, as if she were afraid to let out the emotion she had harboured for so long. Yet Cleo made her feel comfortable enough to open up to her, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Having lost so many of those who were dear to her, Yvette had promised herself that she would never allow herself to get close to another. She had spent years feeling like all she could do was wait for someone, something, to free her from the invisible chains that bound her. There were no rules for how to deal with the death of someone you loved, and she was the first to admit she’d gone off the rails with grief for a good few years. But she was healing, slowly but surely. She had begun to accept that the loss would always stay with her, like a reminder note pinned to the inside of her jacket. But after meeting Cleo she had realised that there were still opportunities for happiness. Even joy.

The happiness she felt was once in a lifetime. She hadn’t expected to meet someone and have this crazy reaction. Even with her gloves on when she touched her skin, it was the best skin she’d ever felt, and no perfume on earth could be better than her smell, and she knew she could never be bored with her because she was interesting even when she was doing nothing. Even without knowing everything about her yet, she got her. Yvette knew who she was, and it worked for her on every level.

Murmuring her name, Cleo brought her hand to her face and nuzzled ardently into her palm, her lips brushing the warm black satin fabric of her glove. It was easy to take her mind off of the searing pain that coursed through her body at every moment when her lover was close, it still hurt and it would continue to hurt until the day she died or found a way to break free of her ailment, yet somehow it didn’t seem quite so bad when she wasn’t facing it alone.

Gently, she brushed the pad of her thumb across her balmed lips and sighed. “I wish that I could kiss you. If I could, I’d never stop. I love you," she said wretchedly. “And if I were well, no power on earth could keep me away from you. If I were well, I would take you to my bed, and I would show you as much passion as any woman could.”

“I know, love...but just being with you will always be more than enough, okay? I love you, unconditionally.”

This was getting bloody ridiculous, she thought savagely, with a sad smile on her face. If her girlfriend became any more adorable, endearing, or delectable, something was going to get broken. Cleo understood the risks of being with her, the limits, the possible consequences, and she was willing to accept all of that in return for the sheer joy of being together. One night with her…one hundred… whatever fate allowed her, she would take. Though, Yvette knew that fate was the malevolent little jester sitting up in the heavens and pondering over how ridiculous humans were and he did his best to make fools out of all of everyone. And sooner or later he would always succeed.

Seemingly reading her mind, Cleo wrapped her arms gently around her waist and pressed close to her chest. She always approached her with great care, and she contemplated her with immeasurable tenderness and concern, as she was one of the few knew how much her body hurt. Nobody had ever hugged her before Cleo, everyone had been too afraid despite the fact that her clothing provided at least some protection...and the intense body heat that she gave off made most people uncomfortable. Holding her girlfriend whilst fully clothed was as physically close as they could be, yet it made her feel whole. It just proved that there was some truth in something that Wrath had once told her, that sometimes when a person is making the best of a bad situation, it turns out far better than they ever could have hoped for.

“Is this alright?,” Cleo asked, her voice muffled into the blue fabric of her dress.

“Hold me tighter?,” Yvette whispered, feeling suddenly far more vulnerable than she’d like.

Her girlfriend obliged, tightening her slender arms over the luxurious fabric of her clothing, as Yvette rested her cheek on her shoulder, being careful that their flesh was not touching as she tucked her face as close to her neck as she possibly could. She’d never been so careful with another person, it reminded her of how carefully she’d treated her collection of books as a child: they had been her companions, her entertainment, and her only window to the outside world.

“Does this not scare you?,” she prodded. “Having me so close? Knowing that I could burn you so easily?”

“You’re not as scary as you think you are.”

“What actually scares you?”

“Among other things, I’m afraid of cows.” 

At that Yvette started laughing and nuzzled her face into the fabric of Cleo’s shirt. “Cows?!”

“Cows.”

“Because of their size? For someone so small a cow must seem like a giant.”

“No, it’s the way they stare. As if they’re plotting something.”

“God, you’re so strange.”

“You love it.”

Quietly, Yvette was happier than she had ever been. If she had the right, she would forbid Cleo to go anywhere without her. Not out of selfishness, but because being apart from her was like trying to live without breathing. Yvette knew that she was not the easiest woman to love. However, Cleo was the first person who’d ever met her halfway — sometimes even a bit more than halfway — and she had vowed to herself to ensure that she would never have cause to regret it. She would become anyone, anything for her. She would lie, steal, beg, kill for her. And even though she knew that she had made many, many mistakes in working with the demons and knew that she had some serious redeeming herself to do in the eyes of her fellow assassins, she was not sorry for what she did in the past few months. Her life would have continued to mean absolutely nothing without them.

**Author's Note:**

> Am I the only one who changes the name of my MC if I play more than one LI per series? I love these fictional characters so much it stresses me tf out to think of one of my MC’s cheating on their wife! lmao.
> 
> (I know a lot of people don’t like Yvette because of what’s going down in Ranza’s route, but I still wanted to post this little one shot that I wrote before Wrath’s chapters were released.)


End file.
